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Warlords of Draenor: Alpha Patch Notes
= Introduction = Welcome to an early look at patch notes for the upcoming World of Warcraft expansion: Warlords of Draenor. The new expansion introduces a wealth of new content and changes. There's also a new patch note format, which we hope will help better convey the reasoning for many of the changes being made and what they mean for you, while providing more background into issues we're trying to solve. Please be aware that the patch notes are preliminary and not final. Details may change before retail release and new information will be added for additional features as development continues on the Warlords of Draenor expansion. Note: Not all the content listed may be available for immediate testing or may only be available during a limited testing window during the Alpha. For more information about Alpha testing and how you can opt in for a chance to participate in the Warlords of Draenor beta test later down the line, check out Warlords of Draenor™ Alpha Testing Begins (US, EU). Looking for a TL;DR summary of all of the changes? Here you go! * Character stats have been squished into smaller numbers that are easier to understand. It's important to understand that this is not a nerf as enemies have been squished as well. * A new row of talents has been added for level 100, and new Draenor Perks from levels 91 to 99. * The Garrison is a new feature available in Draenor, where you can build a base, recruit followers, and send them on missions. * We've balanced the functionality of Agility, Strength and Intellect. * Hit and Expertise have been removed; they're no longer needed in order to reliably land attacks! * The pace of healing have been adjusted to allow for more tactical decisionmaking regarding efficiency and throughput, on both single-target and multi-target heals. Passive and auto-targeted healing have been reduced in effectiveness in order to emphasize the actions and choices of healers. * Racial traits have been rebalanced so that all races have similar combat performance. * All classes have had several abilities pruned, with a focus on redundant and less-used abilities, to cut down on button and keybind bloat. * The amount of crowd control in the game (primarily PvP) has been drastically reduced. Many crowd-control abilities have been removed, and many diminishing returns categories are now merged together. * Several common buffs and debuffs have been merged, or removed, where they were redundant. * All characters now learn a few important Major Glyphs automatically as they level up. * The amount of instant healing in the game has been toned down by giving cast times to several instant cast heals. * Vengeance has been redesigned and renamed Resolve. Resolve does not increase outgoing damage, but does now increase tank self-healing and absorption based on damage taken. * Facing requirements (character position) on some prominent abilities have been loosened or removed. * The mana cost of Resurrection spells has been reduced to make it a little easier to recover from a wipe. * Professions no longer have combat benefit perks tied to them. * There are a multitude of class-specific changes, including things like improved distinction between different Talent specializations, and new Masteries. Consult the class-specific sections below for more information. = New Content = Level-100 Talents and Draenor Perks A new row of talents has been added for level 100. For testing purposes, these are currently accessible at level 90. Draenor Perks is a new feature that adds rewards for leveling. Over levels 91 to 99, you will earn these 9 new Draenor Perk in a random order. Each class and specialization has a different set of 9 Draenor Perks. * Level-100 talents have been added for all classes! * Draenor Perks have been added for all classes, earned from levels 91 to 99. You can preview the new talents on the talent calculator at the fansites here. (Please note that the links below will take you to an external website.) * Talent and Draenor Perk Calculator - Wowhead * Talent Calculator - MMO-Champion Garrisons The Iron Horde army is massive and reinforcements from Azeroth are few. In order to stand a chance, you will need to build an army of your own. * Undertake an epic quest to build a permanent base of operations on Draenor. * Find blueprints and materials to expand and customize your Garrison. * Recruit followers with unique skills and abilities to your cause. * Send followers on missions to level them up and acquire bonus loot. * Begin the quest for your Garrison in Shadowmoon Valley or Frostfire Ridge. = Game System Changes = Stat Squish Character progression is one of the defining characteristics of a role-playing game. Naturally, that means that we're continuously adding more power to the game for players to acquire. After 4 expansions and over 9 years of this growth, we've gotten to a point where the numbers involved are no longer easy to grasp. And worse, much of the granularity that's available is tied up in tiers of older content from Molten Core to Dragon Soul, none of which are really relevant anymore. It's no longer necessary for Borean Tundra quest gear to be nearly twice as powerful as Netherstorm quest gear, even though the two zones are only a couple of levels apart. In order to bring things down to an understandable level, we've reduced the scale of stats throughout the game, back to as if they continued scaling linearly through questing content from levels 1 to 90. This applies to creatures, spells, abilities, consumables, gear, other items... everything. Your stats and damage have been reduced by a huge amount, but so have creatures' health. For example, your Fireball that previously hit a creature for 450,000 out of its 3,000,000 health (15% of its health), may now hit that same creature for 30,000 out of its 200,000 health (still 15% of its health). In effect, you will still be just as powerful, but the numbers that appear will be more easily parsed. = Sources = External links